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Hello, kids of all ages. Muscles of all sizes! This is Phoenix on the other end of the web, “webbifying” my earthly experiences one post at a time: living, loving, lifting!..STAYING STRONG.Stay strong with me!!! Keep cool and keep on going!.

What am I grateful for today? I’m grateful for life, for peace, for glimmering hope – so happy for freedom that I exercise in every aspect of my life (well almost every aspect!). So happy for new friends I made at the gym today (I’m talking to you, Terry!) – as always don’t be a stranger and come up to say “Hi!” to me if you see me sweating next to you. So happy to enjoy my daily ‘burn’ – as Arnold calls it “the best feeling ever”. So happy that the AIR is still free! I enjoy my free air!!! (PGE bill, I don’t enjoy seeing YOU). All in all, grateful for all the opportunities, and for the vast amount of resources that I am aware are available for me (I only have to find/go get them). So grateful for the lessons that life gives me – I love learning, evolving and growing!!! Definitely a million thanks for that. Grateful for the mercy of the Lord and for the immense amount of divine love and compassion in the Universe – I feel it, I accept it, I receive it!.

You can tell from the tone of my post, that I am feeling somewhat better today. Since my Personal Trainer V. has quit a few days ago, I have started with a new trainer, A. “A” is an overall a much happier person, whereas V. was seriously mean, like a really mean dog. He was so mean that it wasn’t even funny! “V” would over-challenge me, and not in a good way. He would say: “I’m ashamed of you. GO HOME!” It was always a battle and he just made me feel bad; he would not motivate me in the right way – since I am mainly self-motivated, it’s enough to say to me: “You want those muscles, don’t you? So, you gotta give it your all! You can achieve it!”. V. was a negative motivator – he motivated with shame, which I believe is not a good tool for a trainer. A. however is a total opposite – he under-challenges, and gives me too little of a load, where I have to fight him to give me more. He is much more positive in his approach which is at least something I can work with.

And of course, in the evening I will come again and I will do my workout MY WAY, the way I feel I need to be challenged and my muscles shocked with the right intensity. Which brings me to tonight’s workout – it’s a leg day again, but I am adding a nice GLUTE workout and intend on staying for about 2 hours today from 8 to 10 PM.

LEG ROUTINE.

Squats

Lunges

Seated hamstring raises (machine)

Sumo squats with a kettlebell

Kettlebell one legged deadlift

Romanian deadlifts

Glute raise with weight

Seated leg curls (machine)

Hip thrusts for glute development (Make a bridge with legs and put shoulders on bench. Thrust hips as high upwards as your hip can go.)

Hello and welcome, friends. Thanks for dropping by and reading my humble ramblings about life, lifting and the ultimate pursuit of happiness – no, not perfection!

Any man can get knocked down. The hero is the man who gets back up. Now, pick up your sword!

So, what brings me here?.. I have recently ended a 5 year relationship – I should say, it wasn’t me who ended it – and it left me just in the middle of nowhere …in the ashes, basically… It’s like you have survived a nuclear blast – and now you are surprised, to say the least, that you are still alive and breathing. It’s just strange that the world is still rotating!. The fire has consumed me, but the world around me is blissfully unaware of my internal hell that I’ve been through. It’s very hard to decide to get up in the morning and ask the Universe: “What’s Next?” -But I decided to keep on going.

While it has been an on again, off again struggle on the path of Healing, I decided that I am most definitely alive – young, good looking, capable, healthy…not alive anymore in a sense of wanting anything for myself…But not dead, either!.

So, I had to be reborn. Thus started my new hobby – body sculpting and weight lifting. The Gym has become my new home partly because I had nowhere else to go. I started visiting Gym daily, and often twice a day — and everyone seems to be happy to see me there. It is the one place where I belong to; with additional benefit that it doesn’t remind me of my Ex (who hated exercising). It is the solace for my soul AND my body. When I first started I had a Personal Trainer for the first 2 months – but one day I found out that my trainer has quit with the gym. I took it well – since I’ve felt I was ready to take responsibility for my own routine. I have been working on the split routine based on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book I’ve picked up on Amazon.com.

The Routine.

Let’s dive right in. Instead of drowning in self pity, I decided that working out was the closest thing to killing myself that I could (safely) come to. It did hurt, but didn’t involve anything unhealthy – on the opposite, I have now excluded alcohol from my diet, sticking mainly to raw juices and lean meats. I have also picked up a read on benefits of mega-dozing with vitamin C – I shouldn’t say that this is particularly conductive to my muscle growth, but I feel that it will be a catalyst to boosting my immunity. Now if you put me on the spot, and ask me: “Phoenix, why did you become so darn health-conscious all of a sudden?” My answer is: ” I didn’t”. It just happened this way, and this is just me keeping myself busy and distracted. A distracted mind is a happier mind.

When the mythical bird Phoenix was reborn, I am not sure that it was re-born into the same world, or was it reborn into another plane?. I would like to think of myself as of someone leaving everything old behind and starting a new life. Therefore, there are topics and places that I just won’t touch. On this new plane, there’s something new for me – because the old Phoenix is dead. So my friends will hear me talk and think differently; reaching into a completely new direction. I am continuing my journey of survival into this new, unknown dimension… What does the future hold?..

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Short Intro

Dear visitor!
Today, less and less people take care of their bodies. And it's very sad. Sometimes they make an excuses like "there's no time", or "No money" or "No desire". Or they will tell themselves: Tomorrow I will sign up for the gym membership. And they go, and sign up, but they never go the day AFTER tomorrow. People just lie to themselves and to the world. Why did I create this site? I wanted to fire up people to take care of their bodies and to work out - they are not alone in their struggles, and the road to becoming healthier is not as hard as it seems. You don't need to spend thousands on personal trainers - its enough to have dedication. Our body is a sacred temple, and if we fortify it then it will serve us for many years to come. It's not vain nor obsessive to love yourself - LOVE OF SELF is our gift from God. How can we love others if we don't love ourselves?..
This site is also about my ponderings and musings about what makes life balanced and fullfiling - after all, tranformation happens on all levels - and I write about life as it happens to me and the lessons I take away from its many challenges.
Maybe after visiting this site people will stop smoking and drinking, and will start working out. At least I would like to believe that I have helped somebody. Visit me often - I am constantly renewing and pressing new content!
Phoenix.